How magical and wonderful would it be to design, create, make and take home your own natural, personalised and handmade perfumes? Signature scents uniquely yours!

On this amazing, interactive, and fun natural perfume making course we’ll learn about, essential oils, synergistic blending and natural perfumery, explore and enhance our sense of smell and more importantly, we’ll learn how to make natural perfumes!

Come and design a signature scent uniquely yours!

This is a fantastic and comprehensive introduction to the magical world of perfumery!

“What a great workshop – informative, yet informal and great fun. I learnt loads and due to the nature of the workshop, was able to get on and use the oils discussed with confidence. An excellent way to spend the day!

Explore the magic and the fragrant beauty of natural essential oils and discover how they can be blended to create aromas that invite a whole new world of enjoyment!

Learn about essential oils through your sense of smell and let the experiences you obtain tell you what you need to know!

With expert guidance, explore, enhance and use your sense of smell to create personalised fragrances using essential oils that will surprise and delight

Let your nose do the talking! Create signature scents uniquely yours!

Design, Create & Take Home

Sensual Anointing Oil – Luxurious Solid Perfume – Magical Perfume

Design, create and take home your own magical personalised natural perfumes!

Discover how to make Eau Fraiche, Eau de Toilette, Eau de Cologne, Eau de Parfum and Parfum

Discover the tricks of the perfumery trade and how to create wonderful, magical and well balanced fragrances

Train your nose to create your fragrant masterpiece!

“Such a relaxing and stimulating day all in one! A treat for the senses and a lovely opportunity to chat and share ideas and aromas!”

Come and discover the mystique of woods, spices and resins, the sweetness of fruits, the delight of flowers, the magic of herbs and the exotic sensuality of our global forests and gardens.

In this amazing, interactive and hands-on workshop, we’ll put pen & paper to one side, awaken the smell within, explore and expand our sense of smell and design and make our own personalised perfumes using natural ingredients!

“I enjoyed the hands-on approach and the personal touch.”

For millennia, the mystery of perfume has inspired imagination, love and beauty, directed spirituality, heightened feelings of lust and sexuality, hypnotised emotions and created immense wonder. To our forefathers, aromatic woods, resins, spices, herbs and flowers were considered otherworldly, magical, and heavenly. So much so that they burned during religious and spiritual ceremonies to carry our dreams, wishes, desires, offerings and prayers to the heavens; our offerings were carried there by “per fumum” or “by means of smoke”. They also anointed their bodies with the aromatic delights because they believed it brought them them closer to the Gods; and so, perfumery was borne.

“Thank you for being such a wonderful teacher. It really gave me the inspiration and confidence I needed to start creating more gorgeous scents sooner and was a very fun way to do it. I really enjoyed the day you ran as well as meeting the other students and it has really made me more eager to create and i feel very excited now about doing much more in the way of creating fragrances! (So eager.. that even today I went and bought 15 new scents to add to the collection for experimenting with!)”

Amanda James

Join us on this fabulous course, awaken your sense of smell and experience mankind’s awe of the fragrant heavens!

SYNERGISTIC BLENDING IS MAGICAL

Individually, essential oils are wonderful, beautifully aromatic and offer amazing therapeutic benefits, but as a collective in a synergistic blend, the power of the whole is greater than that of its individual parts.

Some essential oils heighten and bring out the qualities of other oils.

The more interesting the smell, the more intriguing the blend, the greater the desire to inhale and explore.

Lighter essential oils evaporate quickly, but by using heavier or fixative essential oils it is possible to lengthen the aromatic quality.

When cooking with herbs and spices, we rarely use one, but in fact multiple to create layers of flavours. Blending with essential oils is exactly the same.

Creating personal blends is central to successful aromatic therapy

Smell is controlled by the olfactory system and the limbic part of our brain. The limbic system controls and houses our memories, emotions, and behaviours and is linked to our nervous and hormonal control mechanisms.

Payment & Booking

Places are limited and advanced booking is required by PayPal or cheque (made payable to Gareth Despres).

£125

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A Wonderful Fragrant Experience!

This is a wonderful weekend and you will be joined by a small group of other like minded people. We often find that people share contact details and stay in touch after our weekend courses.

This is an interactive and hands-on group workshop with a focus on learning through exploring and experiencing aromas, doing and making perfumes. This includes individual and group led exercises.

The workshop is held in the heart of Clifton Village, Bristol; a beautiful part of Bristol with wonderful green spaces, secluded squares, and views across Bristol and the Avon Gorge.

Clifton Village boasts vast shops, cafes, restaurants, delis, pubs and bars so that you can enjoy your weekend stay if you are travelling from across the UK.

Rich in Georgian architecture, Clifton houses the majestic Royal York Crescent and is home to Kingdom Isambard Brunel’s magnificent Clifton Suspension Bridge.

“I enjoyed the fact that the course was set in a relaxed and friendly atmosphere. Gail and Gareth are both lovely people who obviously know what they are talking about.” Ellie Bassey

Places To Stay

Your Space Bristol are short term letting specialists with apartments for rent over weekends across the city, including the modern harbourside

The Avon Gorge Hotel is just 2 minutes walk from us in Clifton Village and boasts views of the Clifton Suspension Bridge

Best Western is 5 minutes walk and close to the beautiful Victoria Square, one time home of Cricket Legend, WG Grace

There are many other fantastic hotels and B&Bs in Clifton and across the city.

F.A.Q

Do I need to have any previous experience or skill?

All you need is an open mind, a willingness to explore, a smile on your face and a happy disposition as well as a sense of smell. Nothing else!

I am an experienced practitioner; is this course something I would benefit from?

This course is aimed at people of all levels from basic to experienced practitioner. I have had aromatherapists on my courses who have gone away having learnt many new and valuable ideas. Ideas of how to use essential oils at home more effectively, ideas about which oils could be used as alternatives, new and improved essential oil blending methods and more importantly, we learn almost everything through our sense of smell rather than from information I hand out on paper at the start. I guide participants through this very carefully and aromatherapists have always commented on how much they have learnt through this different experience.

Will I learn an essential oil blending formula that works?

I will be teaching a variety of formulas and you will be given all the information on paper which will help you when you go home at the end of the weekend. My teaching methods are geared more towards practical exploration than pen and paper and we will be using our sense of smell as the primary mode of learning and of experience. The practical skills, the interactive work, the exploration of fragrant essential oils and the insights that you will gather will give you the most important skills and the most memorable experiences.

“I was most amazed at how much I could tell about the essential oils and the different types of aromas just from their smell! Gareth’s guidance and instruction around intuitive smell was great! Made the workshop even more memorable.”

Can I really create a perfume that smells like something you can buy in the shops and that I will like?

Yes! Blending essential oils to make a perfume is easy when you know how. You will be encouraged to go with what you like and then encouraged to think about what you have chosen before finalising it to ensure it is well balanced. We will be looking at how to ensure you have a well balanced blend.

What is the benefit of making your own perfumes?

Making your own perfumes is amazing.

They cost a lot to buy but making them is relatively cheap

You can create a fragrance uniquely yours that no-one else has got; you can make perfumes for friends and family members too! They make amazing presents

Its great fun, doesn’t take a lot of time to make them and when you know how, it can be quite easy to do as well

The key thing is perfumes cost a lot of money and it’s a big money making industry but by using natural essential oils that are readily available and easy to obtain you can create something personal with your hands at home for a fraction of the price! You can also use those essential oils in many other ways to enhance your health & happiness and boost general immunity.

What is the benefit of using natural vs synthetic ingredients?

Many people are allergic to synthetic ingredients and simply just don’t like using them. The truth is, natural ingredients are more expensive and are much harder to control in a standardised manufactured way i.e. you cannot standardise a natural ingredient and make it always exactly the same. These are a few of the key reasons the perfumery industry uses synthetic ingredients.

Essential oils are natural plant extracts but they are still chemicals and need to be treated with care. They can still cause sensitivities and like synthetic ingredients they can be toxic.You just need to know what you are doing and that’s what I teach as part of this workshop.

There are many amazing (synthetic) fragrance oils available and you can use them to great effect if you would like when you go home. I prefer using and teaching with natural ingredients. I love the beauty and magic that the natural world has to offer. Let’s explore the magic of nature first!

Will this course give me the information I need to go on and use essential oils afterwards?

I will be giving participants a lot of information on paper at the end of the course which will help you when you go home. There will be lots of group work, individual exercises and group discussions to ensure that we share experiences, insights, thoughts and learning. My teaching methods are geared more towards practical exploration than pen and paper and we will be using our sense of smell as the primary mode of learning and of experience. The practical skills, the interactive work, the exploration of fragrant essential oils and the insights that you will gather will give you the most important skills and the most memorable experiences.

Is it safe to use essential oils at home?

Yes! You just need to know what you are doing, which oils to use for what and how to use them. You also need to know the basic safety guidelines and we cover all of that on this course. Having the information is one thing, but using it something different. The focus of this course is to find out the information but to actually do something with it.

Where can I get the ingredients from to make them myself and are the ingredients expensive?

The ingredients are very inexpensive with the exception of a few key essential oils which we’ll discuss on the course. I rarely use these essential oils to make my products and if I do it’s in moderation. The ingredients are easy to come by, readily available and affordable. With online services they are delivered to your door in a matter of days and during the course of the weekend we will discuss some good, reliable and trustworthy suppliers.

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Comments on Aromatic Therapeutics Workshops

What a great workshop – informative, yet informal and great fun. I learnt loads and due to the nature of the workshop, was able to get on and use the oils discussed with confidence.
I liked that fact the workshop allowed ‘to go off topic’ and get to know the other people there and share experiences.
In short – an excellent way to spend the day!
MARIE SKUCE